Equilibrium
by unknown ghost author
Summary: Prowl had never heard of, nor cared about, a planet called Earth. Until Jazz never came back.


**Equilibrium**

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><p><em>A Movie-Verse AU Fic (starting with <span>Ghosts of Yesterday<span> to the first Bayverse movie)_

_Written especially for Jinn and commissioned by Autobot Masquerade._

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><p><strong>Another Oldie but Goodie!<br>**

**So, I wrote this story **_..._ **years ago as a commission and had it on another site for a while. That site died, and then it got lost in cyberspace, and this fic hasn't seen the light of day until now. A dear, dear reader PM'd me and asked about it, and after a search through my harddrive, lookey what I found! **

**It's a blast from the past - Bayverse AU, first movie "Jazz didn't really die" J/P fixit fic. That's a classic in this fandom, isn't it? **_:) _

**All credit for this fic being found and posted again goes to AkimaM. Thank you very much for requesting it to be posted and for spurring me on to find it! :) **_  
><em>

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><p>Prowl had never heard of, nor cared anything about, a planet called Earth.<p>

Jazz had come to him about Earth while he was deep underground in their third planetary hideout, the desert winds digging into their servos and creating havoc with their sensor grids, and told him of Optimus's travels, his passage through a wormhole, his encounter with Starscream at the edge of the galaxy. The discovery of a new alien species. Bumblebee's heroics.

Prowl had listened, listened as he always did, to Jazz and to his stories, to his recitations of battles and Autobot events spread out across the galaxy. Their forces were stretched thin, too thin. The search for the All Spark, the only way to reignite their world, was fast becoming desperate. The energon shortages and riots had already torn through their civilization. No "civilians" remained – all were either Autobot or Decepticon, fighting, surviving, struggling, for their own individual future.

Prowl had listened, as he always did, to Jazz. Jazz had found this very planet for them, scouted and recon'd while injured, while floating in the blackness of space. He had orbited its moon for cycles, self repairs working slowly to repair his damaged and burned internals as Prowl fretted, worried, and paced, anxiously awaiting the arrival of his friend back at their base, their temporary-become-permanent home at the edge of the Vector system. Solar winds provided enough cover over the desert planet from Starscream's brigade, his relentless pursuit, while Thundercracker and Skywarp lead the rampaging charges through the galaxy in pursuit of both Megatron and the remaining Autobots.

Jazz found the desert planet while Prowl was frantic in fear and worry for his friend. Jazz returned, bouncing in joy and happiness off the medi-gurney as he tried to relay his find to Ratchet. Ratchet had no patience for Jazz's exuberance, glowering and attempting to roll the far-too-jovial for a half disassembled mech to the medbay complete with threats of complete dismemberment and reformatting.

Jazz was unbowed.

His exuberance won him an audience with Prime, Optimus coming down to both check on his friend and to confirm in-person Jazz's wild reports of a new world, an inhabitable, solid-form planet, capable of supporting their lifeforms and possessing the necessary ores and nutrients vital to their survival. Each planet, each possible find, was a potential new world after the loss of the All Spark, the surrender of their entire way of life, to the blackness of space.

Jazz's enthusiasm was contagious. Prime was infected, despite Ratchet's sighs and rolling optics and threats of bolting Jazz to the berth and disassembling his vocal processor. Prime organized a search party. Prowl was designated to go.

Prowl left nearly a megacycle after Jazz returned, scouting Jazz's desert planet with Cliffjumper and Hound, searching and confirming, to their disbelieving optics, Jazz's claims. This was an inhabitable, wonderful, entirely new, life-giving planet.

It all went to the Pits, naturally, shortly after their relocation.

Jazz was back on his feet by then, carefully and slowly maneuvering around after losing nearly his right leg entirely, along with one arm, during his skirmish with the Second Battalion of Seekers, commanded by Dirge. He helped Ratchet, the gruff medic ordering him back and forth with the packing of his medbay, grumbling again about their relocation and constant movement, despite the fact that the last move they'd had was decacylces prior - their move off of Cybertron to their temporary base and to their exile. Ratchet didn't care.

A human craft, a species of alien Prowl hadn't ever heard of nor cared to know about, made its way near to their new desert planet via a wormhole. Starscream was fascinated, naturally, by the Cybertronian technology in the craft, beautifully – poetically - reverse engineered from Megatron. Starscream went cascading across the galaxy in a desperate search for his commander, and for the human space ship containing his parts.

That's how they found Megatron. An organic ship containing his parts, lost and scared and alone, halfway cross the galaxy from their insignificant home world, talking in tongues of iceman and glyphs and giant metal aliens.

Their battle with Starscream was long and vicious. The humans languished in the middle. Starscream had managed to convince the humans in their space craft of his superiority, his slick-glossa'd personality extending across species yet again. The humans realized, finally, though not before it was too late, where their real chances for survival lie, denying Starscream his final, perfect success – the location of Earth, the location of his commander, of Megatron, and of his desperate, vengeful quest for the All Spark.

Unfortunately, they didn't quite get the information to Optimus Prime either.

Jazz had come to him again, then, optics shining and vocalizer strong, finally standing firmly on his feet on their new, dusty home world. The construction bots were still trying to form a living base, a world from the treacherous folds of the rocky ores. Amidst the dust and desert wind, Jazz told him he was leaving. Again.

Jazz was going with Optimus. Traveling halfway across the galaxy, following Bumblebee on a frightening, uncertain gamble, following the potential wormhole the humans had stumbled into, trying to locate the organic planet – Earth - before Starscream and his faction managed to. It was foolish, it was dangerous, it was crazy, fantastical, and entirely, desperately, Optimus. Of course Jazz was going.

If the twins were still around, the unruly, entirely too crazy, too energon thirsty twins, were still around, they would have gone too, the promise of new contact, of impressing new aliens with their modes and skills, as well as the promise of Decepticon energon, too enticing to pass by. They weren't there, though. They weren't there, just as so many other bots weren't there. Too many.

Jazz was still alive, still pulsing strongly, still shattering planets and systems, still shattering Prowl's entire universe with the tilt of his helm, with the curve of his lipplates, the sheen to his visor.

Jazz finished telling Prowl he was heading off, heading to the other side of the galaxy and leaving him on their new, Primus forsaken, dusty planetoid that he had found. Prowl stood in the roughly-built doorarch, planetary winds sweeping outside and gazed back with a too-bright hew to his optics as Prowl struggled with the electrical conduction circuits in a vain attempt to power his terminals.

"I'm serious. Prowl," Jazz had said. "I'm leaving. I might not come back."

Prowl fussed, again, with the plugs, struggling with the energy transfer. How do you create power when you arrive on an alien world, entirely devoid at first landing of any process of life for your species?

"Is there anything…. Anything you want to say?" Jazz's helm had tilted, in _that_ way, that gear-stopping way of his, as he gazed across the shelter's interior to Prowl. The desert winds howled outside.

Prowl had too many things, entirely too many things to say to Jazz. He had a lifetime of curses, of angry, bitter words waiting to unleash themselves at the right time to say. He had a hundred thousand different sighs, each patterned to a different stress Jazz had inflicted upon him, from that sneaky, devious smirk, to the pained, entirely too-joyful expression of his, always delighted to be under Ratchet's care again, despite his missing limbs, despite his entirely too close situations, again and again.

He had too many words of care, of frightened cycles spent in the medbay, of terrified cycles spent wondering, waiting, watching the comms and the monitors and the too-often cycles Jazz spent away from their team to force the words out of his vocalizer.

"When do you leave?" was all he managed.

Jazz fiddled, fidgeting, fudging with Prowl's temporary shelter's frame until Prowl had shot him a glare, the last sharing of optics they had together. Jazz sighed, relinquishing his hold on the doorframe, his optics shining brightly outwards and gazed across the planet he had brought them to. The planet he would not be suffering through as they tried to make it livable.

There was too much between them, too much history, too much feeling, too much of everything between them for words. Jazz had always been there in Prowl's life, just as he had in every other mechs' life, carefree, gorgeous, and stunning, an entirely alive mech, wanting nothing more than to live. That Prowl would fall in love with him was guaranteed, was bound to happen, as it had happened to so many other mechs. They were all entranced, caught up, fascinated with the smiling mech and the effervescent persona of Jazz that rolled off of him in waves.

That Jazz would feel something back for Prowl… That was unusual.

That Jazz, of all the mechs he could have fallen for, would chose to fall for Prowl, the quiet, unassuming, tactician, forceful behind his optics, with careful plans and long ranging strategies that kept them all alive and that Ironhide's headstrong battle tactics carelessly swept aside, was a near impossibility. A near impracticality. It did not compute, no matter how the variables were skewed.

Jazz was lightness, was air, was shining silver amidst a beacon of joy, of hope, of light in a dark and fearful universe. Prowl was darkness, a reminder of their fate, a reminder of grim plans and energon rations and loss. It was illogical. It was insanity.

It was also true.

Prowl didn't know how to address it, and so he chose not to. He hid himself, his thoughts, his feelings, and cast an impenetrable veneer of practicality and survivability over his self.

Jazz never pressed. He flitted about, smiling and sashaying his way around their base, looking out for Bumblebee, avoiding Ratchet, serving Prime. Annoying Prowl. Adoring Prowl.

Prowl adored him back, in the quietness of his processor, in the stillness of his thoughts, in the only way he knew how. On his own.

Jazz chose to leave, to head off with Optimus and to disappear on an ill-planned, ill-fated quest - yet again - for the All Spark on another organic world. It hurt, again, as it had hurt so many times before, to see Jazz go. Something about this was different, though. Jazz had never before lingered, never before fidgeted with his doorframe or tilted his helm in that way, with that look to his optics. Never asked him if he had anything to say.

"I'll see you when you get back," was all Prowl could manage, turned away and not even looking at Jazz.

When he turned back, Jazz was already gone.

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><p>Much later, Prowl felt the pained, gasping sigh curve around his spark, alighting the inside of his chamber and sending an icy scorch of fire throughout his systems in a way he had <strong>never<strong> felt before. He thought he heard, out of the corner of his audial, Jazz's voice, softly whispering his name and carried away on the roaring desert winds.

He had fallen, fallen to his knees, optics surging against the shock and the reverberations throughout his processor of the what if's, the unknowns, the unfathomable computations of what had just happened. He couldn't, couldn't possibly imagine what had just occurred.

His only thoughts were of Jazz.

For cycles, he thought of him, lost and far away on an organic world. He stared into the desert wind, trying to recapture that feeling, that noise, the breathy whisper of his name uttered from Jazz's vocalizer that passed by his sensors. He couldn't recapture it, no matter how high he tuned his audials, no matter how long he stood in the blowing sand.

It didn't take him long to reach his decision.

"I'm going to Earth."

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><p>Prowl knew something was wrong when his protoform crashed into the dry desert Earth. Optimus had called the alien world a new home, with promises of a new life interspersed with pauses that spoke of unspeakable tragedy. Prowl was already rocketing through the stars, racing through space as fast as his form could take him when the transmission came through, crackling over his rounded travel form. It was too much, too terrifying for him to think of the possibilities, the permutations of Optimus' pauses, the hesitation in his voice, the potentialities that spoke of tragedy. He offlined his battle computer to stop that thought process.<p>

Ironhide was waiting for him, transforming from a sleek black Earth alt mode to stand at the edge of Prowl's impact crater, frowning down and waiting. Prowl transformed, unfolding and standing slowly. He never liked the impacts, the crashing downwards into a new and alien world. He stood, gazing up into Ironhide's silent, pensive faceplates.

"Brought you this," Ironhide gruffly motioned to the white car, a modest, two door sports sedan, capable of fast enough speeds to nearly be impractical and yet still maintaining Prowl's need, his deep unyielding need, for moderation, for stasis, for normality, for equilibrium in everything.

Prowl scanned it, transforming and sighing into his new alt mode as the human watched, mouth slightly open, staring from inside the white model car Prowl had just turned into. "That never gets old," he whispered, turning the car and following Ironhide as the Weapons Specialist led Prowl back to their new base, buried deep in the Utah desert. It was far away from any prying human eyes, shielded away from the mass population centers in case of another Decepticon attack. Starscream **had** escaped, after all.

Prowl followed Ironhide silently, taking in the Earth landscape around him. Crystalline blue sky, red rock sand, ores and metals and resources in abundance, flowing and pouring from the earth, from the ground, from the sky. Organic life in abundance, in every shape and shade and size. It was stunning, remarkable, entirely and utterly unbearable. Prowl's optics nearly fizzled out, nearly offlined from the sheer overwhelming input to his sensors.

His only thought, following Ironhide as they tore across the desert, was 'Jazz must love this.'

Bumblebee was waiting just inside their base entrance, human military guards breezing by to allow the Autobots to race through the gates without slowing. He was chatting and laughing, playing with a young human male, a boy, trying to play what Prowl later learned was a game called basketball with a brightly colored orange ball that was entirely too big for the boy and entirely too small for Bumblebee.

Bumblebee froze when he saw Prowl trailing behind Ironhide. His optics widened, jaw cables loosening as his lower mouthguard twisted, sliding out in shock. Prowl hadn't come under order. Optimus hadn't requested him, hadn't ordered his Second in Command to Earth. Prowl had simply come, flown halfway across the galaxy on a feeling, an urge, a need to regain the stasis and the equilibrium in his life that had suddenly, fleetingly, vanished.

His presence there, unrequested, unasked, and unexpected, had just thrown Bumblebee's center entirely off. The yellow 'bot stared after Prowl as Ironhide led him across the complex, transforming to his alt mode enter a large hanger. The rounded metal ceiling stretched far above their helms, rusty steel beams holding up battered skylights that scattered the too-bright sunlight in every direction. The orange ball bounced off Bumblebee's armor, unnoticed.

Prowl followed Ironhide inside the hanger, still silent. Ironhide stilled, turning fully to face Prowl, optics too-blue and crackling. His faceplates twisted, metal gears whirling as his servos tried to respond to the multitude of emotions tearing across his emotional network, trying to display each and every one. Behind him, the hangar was partitioned, hastily erected panels setting aside the rear dominant space as a private area, secluded and still.

"There was… an incident. During the battle." Ironhide, a mech of few words, few gruff words, struggled under this, the burden of telling Prowl. Why wasn't Optimus here to meet Prowl and tell him all this, this unspeakable thing? Why him, Primus, why him?

Prowl stared into Ironhide's faceplates, unmoving. His battle computer was still offline, still refusing to accept and compute the possibilities of reality. He pushed it off, pushed it all away, looking instead to only what was directly in front of his faceplates. That he could deal with. That he could face. He couldn't face the unthinkable possibilities of what his life would be like, his eternal regrets if…

He couldn't face that.

Ironhide sighed, gears whirring again and again across his faceplates, rotating and spinning around frantically as his optics squeezed shut briefly. "Prowl, Jazz died."

The world faded away. Blackness, dark and terrible, rushed in from all sides, suffocating, drowning, enveloping Prowl in it's horrible grasp. He gasped, but no air came through his vents. He tried to step, but his servos wouldn't move. He tried, tried so hard to think, to stop, to rationalize away what he had just heard, but his spark wouldn't move beyond the astrosecond, replaying Ironhide's terrible, final words, his proclamation that the light of the universe, the sun in Prowl's world, had just been ripped away, torn from its existence.

He shook his helm, shook it back and forth until the shaking traveled down his body, shaking and tearing apart his frame, his new white armor bouncing and creaking against each other as he tried to cover his audials, to block out the words Ironhide had just said, had just destroyed Prowl's entire world with.

"What the slag is going on?" Ratchet's voice, the grumpy, exhausted voice of their medic, rang through the medbay. His heavy footfalls and the whirling of his servos broke the stillness that had settled across the hangar. Ratchet reached for Prowl's arm, the tactician doubled over and clutching his helm, static keening from his vocalizer in a ceaseless whine. Ironhide stood uselessly in front of him. He tried to think, tried to imagine what to say next, how to stop the tactician's pain and horror and fear. He wasn't good at this sort of thing.

Prowl's optics flashed up at the touch, faceplates and gears frozen in agonizing terror as he stared at Ratchet. "No," he whispered, holding Ratchet's gaze though he kept his hands firmly pressed over his audials, not wanting to hear another word, not another whisper about the course his life had just traveled down. "No…"

Ratchet swallowed, gears rising and falling in his throat slowly. "Prowl, the damage… it was terrible. He took on Megatron by himself."

Prowl gasped again, leaning forward as his legs finally gave out, kneejoints and servos refusing to stabilize him. He crashed into the floor, knees impacting the concrete with a crash, fracturing and cracking the concrete flooring beneath him in a thousand different shards, spider-webbing their way across the hanger deck.

"We used the last of the All Spark, the only shard we have left, to reignite his spark. We're trying, I'm trying, to repair the damage, Prowl. But it's… " Ratchet shook his helm. "Prowl, it's bad."

Prowl stared, not understanding, not understanding a single thing Ratchet was trying to tell him. All he could see, all he could remember, was the image of Jazz, fiddling with his door hinge on the desert planet, the planet Jazz had found, gazing at him and asking if there was anything he needed to say.

From behind the partitions and nestled in the private area, still and entombed with Ratchet's desperate work, came a small voice, scratchy and exhausted and awoken by the crashing sounds in the hangar. Waking alone from his recharge and hearing a loud crash, entirely immobile and unable to defend himself, he timidly called out, "Ratchet?"

The word, the single, simple word, tore though the hanger, lancing straight into Prowl's spark. Ratchet turned his helm, cursing, and began to walk back to his patient. Ironhide finally gazed down at Prowl's huddled body, his faceplates frozen in shocked wonder and horrible, terrible confusion. A single emotion shone irrepressible from his overbright optics as his servos began to shake: hope.

He stood, unsteadily reaching for Ironhide's hand as he did so. The weapons specialist dipped down, helping the tactician to stand and holding him upright as Prowl stared at Ratchet's retreating form, walking back to that voice, the voice he had wanted to hear since _he_ had left, left him alone in his too-lonely office on their too-lonely planet.

Prowl shakily followed, moving behind Ratchet until he was at the edge of the partition. He was shaking apart underneath his armor as he waited, hesitated, holding back at the very edge of knowing, of seeing, of realizing the truth. Ratchet's voice came to his audials, quietly asking the mech within, "How do you feel?"

"Tired." That voice again, so soft, sighing his answer back up to Ratchet. Vorns of weariness and exhaustion, a tiredness of life itself, spoke through much more strongly than his single vocalized word did.

Prowl moved, finally spurned forward, around the partition, drawn forward magnetically by _that_ voice, the voice that belonged to the mech he loved more than life itself, illogically, unstoppably.

Ratchet's helm whipped around, staring at Prowl as he came fully into view.

Jazz was laid out on the berth beneath him.

Prowl didn't pay any attention to the medic, optics focused fully on Jazz's body, Jazz's _half _body. A depression where his legs should have been was covered entirely by a flat thermal blanket, tucked up around his chestplating and under his arms. Next to Jazz in the next berth were his legs and his waist plating, horribly disfigured and deformed, nearly shredded, wires and cables and servos hanging limp and useless. Lifeless.

"Prowl?" Jazz's voice, the same weary and exhausted voice spoke, this time tinged with wonder and confusion. He smiled, a tiny, almost-unnoticed twitch of his lipplates, the only sign of happiness and emotion he had shown since onlining again. "Are you moving the rest of the army in?"

Prowl shook his helm, walking closer to Jazz's body - _his half body_ - as Ratchet stepped backwards, fading away into the dark hangar.

"Did Optimus call you out here? I know you hate to travel." Jazz's voice hitched, more words spoken in one minute than in the past month, his vents suddenly speeding up to accommodate the wild exertions he was forcing his body to endure to speak to Prowl.

Prowl shook his helm again, feet stepping closer, one by one, until he was right next to Jazz's berthside. Prowl stared down into his visor, still and silent as he ever was. He had so much to say. Jazz's words repeated over and over in his processor – _"don't you have anything you want to say to me?" _– and yet he was entirely unable to begin and had no clue where to start.

"Sorry I can't stand and salute…" Jazz's voice faded away with small twitch of his hand down to his missing half body. His vocalizer finally faded, overworked on the energy he never had. "Why are you here?" Jazz forced out, whispering through his vents, gears grinding as he forced the question.

Prowl reached out, both hands shakily moving toward Jazz. He reached higher, one hand softly grazing across Jazz's helm, feather light touches cascading over his plating, gentle fingertips sliding from the tops of Jazz's visor until they disappeared behind the curve of his helm, fading into the berth. He cupped Jazz's audial horns, the sensor attachments rising from Jazz's helm gently, thumb stroking up and down the leading edge.

Jazz gasped, vocalizer hissing and shorting under Prowl's touches and his gentle caress. He turned his helm, his neck protesting the movement, his servos and gears whining as he twisted, trying to push more contact, more feeling into Prowl's tender touches.

Prowl's other hand reached down, gripping Jazz's hand in his own. Their digits and joints interlocked, squeezing together too-tightly, cracking and denting against the others as they both gripped down, never letting go of the other. Jazz gasped again, optics shifting and shimmering as they dimmed, the force of his emotions too much for his overworked, damaged processor.

"I needed to tell you," Prowl whispered finally, finally gathering his strength, his courage, and his life-long regrets around his spark and forcing himself to act. "I needed to tell you that I love you," he whispered.

Jazz's visor surged, emotion flooding through him as he had never felt before. He moaned, groaned, under the weight of it, the pressure bearing down onto him, into him, squeezing into his spark until it burst, shatters of light and love suffusing his entire being, surging though his network and reenergizing him, demanding he live, demanding he survive, demanding he take this love in both his hands and cherish it, hold it, live with it. Forever.

"Prowl…" Jazz whispered, his vocalizer hissing. He squeezed back on Prowl's hand, pushing his helm against Prowl's other hand, wanting more contact, more perfect touches from Prowl. "I love you **so** much…"

Prowl shook his helm, finally bending down to gently graze his lipplates against the top of Jazz's helm, nuzzling the softly dented armor as he did so. Jazz's helm bucked upward, trying to deepen the contact, wanting everything of himself to be wrapped in Prowl's arms, inside his armor, inside his spark. "Why?" Prowl breathed, gently kissing Jazz's helm again before standing and leaning over Jazz's faceplates. "Why do you love me?"

Jazz swallowed again, his gears sticking as he did so, grinding together softly before he spoke. "Why does the sun shine on this world?"

Prowl frowned at the non-sequitor, though answered truthfully. "The reactions at the core of the star send cascades of energy across the spectrum –"

Jazz laughed, a perfect, soft laugh, low and gentle, and shook his helm slightly. Prowl froze at the musical sound, his optics widening as he stared down at Jazz's perfect, beautiful self. He was stunningly gorgeous - his helm lightly tilted, his visor shining, his vocalizer rising in stunning musical laughter as he stared up into Prowl's optics, love and light shining outwards.

"Because it **does,** Prowl. Because it does."

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><p><em>Thank you for digging this up, AkimaM. :) <em>

_Thank you all for reading!_


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